It is well known to process photographic materials in web and sheet form by passing the material through a photographic processor which comprises a plurality of processing stages, for example, developer, bleach, bleach-fix, wash, and stabilizer stages, etc. The material is processed in each stage by the processing solutions retained in that particular part of the processor. In such apparatus, the material being processed is substantially immersed in the solution in each of the processing stages. As a result, the volumes of processing solutions used tend to be large, often at least 40 or 50 liters.
It is also known to process photographic materials using low volumes of solution, typically less than 1 liter and preferably around 100 ml. Such arrangements are described in published European Patent Applications EP-A-0 515 454, EP-A-0 532 558, EP-A-0 546 136, EP-A-0 553 172, EP-A-0 614 545 and others. In processing apparatus in which low volumes of processing solutions are utilized, unstable processing chemistry can be employed, for example, redox amplification (RX) chemistry.
EP-A-0 562 401 discloses an arrangement for a photographic processor in which the volumes of processing solution utilized are reduced. The processor is of conventional size, that is, having large tank volumes, but in which lower volumes of processing solutions are utilized. The processing bath for each processing stage comprises a plurality of processing tanks. Each processing bath contains upper and lower guide rollers over which the photographic material to be processed is transported, each of the lower rollers being located in a respective one of the processing tanks. The material is alternately dipped into a processing tank and processing solution retained therein in the bath and not dipped so that the time for which the material is dipped in processing solution is not more than 50% of the total time in that particular processing bath.